A Misadventure in Pears
by ifan13
Summary: During Human Nature/Family of Blood, Martha has more to deal with than just aliens. How can she keep pears away from John Smith/the Doctor?


**A/N:** This is what I think happened in Human Nature/Family of Blood when we weren't able to see what was going on. This story is based on the instructions that were fast forwarded through by Martha. If you haven't seen them, look up "Doctor Who pears" on YouTube and you should find the clip. Edited by the wonderful Christian B!

**Disclaimer:** Sadly, I do not own Doctor Who. But I do own a red pear and several bananas.

**A Misadventure in Pears**

_ And five, very important, five, don't let me eat pears! I _hate_ pears! John Smith is a character I made up, but I won't know that. I'll think I am him and he might do something stupid like eat a pear! In three months, I don't want to wake up from being human and taste that!_

Out of all the instructions the Doctor left Martha, she was pretty sure this was the most important one. Sure, the rest of the instructions had to do with saving the world, etc., but she and the Doctor did that kind of thing almost every day. However, this was the first (and hopefully last) time where Martha was pretty sure that the Doctor would kill her if she failed. He really _hated_ pears.

So when Martha noticed on her fist day as a housemaid that pears were served with breakfast every morning, well let's just say that she would have rather faced an entire fleet of Daleks saying "Exterminate!" However, she soon realized that this was a fairly easy problem to fix – all she had to do was remove the pears from "John Smith's" tray each morning. This worked for about two weeks, until Mr. Smith developed a sudden craving for pears and decided to see where he could get some.

"Martha, I've been asking around and apparently, every other teacher here gets pears with their breakfast," John said to Martha one morning. "Do you think you could ask Cook to include a pear with my breakfast as well?"

Martha appeared frozen for a moment, staring at John Smith with a horrified look on her face before she shook herself and said that she could indeed mention the matter to Cook.

Mr. Smith thanked her with a blinding smile. "Thank you. I'm not quite sure what I'd do with out you, Martha."

"Me neither," Martha shot back under her breath.

Drastic times call for drastic actions and in this case, meant that Martha would have to do something she abhorred – stealing. She passed John Smith's request on to the cook and then passed the rest of the day doing her duties, keeping an eye out for the Family, and wishing she was back in the 21st century where women could be doctors and she could have stood up to some of these _awful _boys. That night, she put her plan (to steal the pears) into action.

The next morning, she brought Mr. Smith his tray as usual. He was sitting on his bed, a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, looking very puzzled.

"Good morning, sir," Martha said in a cheery voice that belied her exhaustion. Then, in a slightly concerned voice asked, "Are you alright, sir?"

"What? Oh, yes," Mr. Smith said absent absentmindedly. "It's just that I had another very strange dream last night. You would think I was absolutely mad if I told you about this one … Oh, is that breakfast?" He brightened up. "You can set it right there." He indicated to his table.

Martha set the tray down. "I'm sorry, sir," she apologized. "They didn't have any pears this morning. It seems all the pears were stolen last night! But they had some very nice bananas, so I brought one."

"That's interesting," John Smith remarked as he reached for the banana. "The time traveler I've been dreaming about – the Doctor, you know - has a great liking for bananas. In my dream last night, he saved an entire uninhabited planet from annihilation simply because there was a giant banana tree on it. Then, he put one of the bananas in his pocket and ended up using it to invent the banana daiquiri in France! I, however, have not had a banana in years," and with that, he took a very large bite of the banana.

Martha tried hard – she really did – to keep from laughing. But, Mr. Smith's face was so ludicrously disappointed as he tasted the banana, that she had to cover her mouth to keep her peals of laughter from echoing through the entire school. John swallowed his bite with a gulp and gingerly put the rest of the banana down with a disgusted look on his face.

"I believe, Martha, that we get a fresh load of fruit everyday. Could you make sure Cook gives me a pear tomorrow and _not_ a banana?" Mr. Smith asked with a smile as he noticed Martha's amusement.

"Of course, sir," she replied, quickly sobering up at the thought of another long night spent stealing pears. She bobbed a slight curtsey and left.

Her career as a thief went very well for about another week, until John Smith got fed up with being told every morning that the pears had once again been stolen by a mysterious burglar. Taking matters into his own hands, he went to the headmaster and put forth the idea that some boys should start guarding the pears until the mysterious pear thief was caught. It could be part of their training, could it not?

Martha was missing the Doctor already but now she was tempted to open up the fob watch and hang the consequences! Why would this man not give up? It seemed like John Smith was almost as obsessed with pears as the Doctor was with bananas.

Martha went to the TARDIS to vent her feelings and watch the Doctor's instructions one more time. Curse number five! What the hell did he expect her to do when John Smith's will was almost as strong as his own?

An hour later, she came out of the TARDIS with a plan – she would go to the source. And so she did. She walked to the only fruit provider in town and presented him with a _very _large wad of cash with the promise of more to come if he pretended that there was a pear shortage. Being very receptive to large sums of money, the grocer readily assented to this plan and Martha went home, looking forward to her first full night of sleep in a week.

_ There is no possible way he can get any pears now,_ she thought to herself. She was doomed the moment she thought that.

At around noon the next day, Martha returned to the school from an errand into town, to see Jenny walking down the stairs with a plate that had a knife and pear remains on it.

Martha stared at it, horrified. "Whose room did that come from?" she asked urgently.

"Well, from Mr. Smith's room. But, why -" Jenny tried to continue but Martha was already dashing up the stairs as quickly as her skirts would allow. She burst into John Smith's room with out knocking and he turned around with a very surprised look on his face.

"Martha, what in-" he began.

"Did you just eat a pear?" she interrupted in a frantic voice.

"Yes, but I don-"

"No, no, no! He is going to kill me!" she moaned in an anguished voice. "Where in the world did you get a pear from?"

"Joa- I mean, Matron Redfern was out of town yesterday and happened upon some pears which she was kind enough to procure for me after I tol- I mean, after she heard I wanted some. But, again, I don't really see what -"

"Oh this is perfect – just perfect! You just had to go and eat a pear, didn't you?" She glared at him.

John Smith looked back at her mystified. Then Martha made a frustrated noise, stomped out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.

_ Well that was odd,_ Mr. Smith thought._ I wonder who she thinks is going to kill her. Oh well. She's probably just tired – she hasn't looked well the past few days. But still! To start ranting about pears? Oh, pears! I wonder if Joan has anymore …_

* * *

><p>A little while later, the Family finally arrived and started making trouble. John was too perplexed by what was happening to remember Martha's strange behavior. Martha was too busy fighting the Family, trying to separate John Smith from Joan Redfern, and searching for the fob watch to remember that he had eaten a pear. But once the Doctor returned, she would remember.<p>

* * *

><p><em> Hands – check,<em> the Doctor thought in the first few second of being back in his body. _Legs – present. Nose – right. Hair – _definitely_ here. Mouth – here- wait, what is that awful taste? Ugh, that tastes like – no, it can't be! Martha wouldn't have let me …_

"Martha," he said in a dangerously quiet voice, "you didn't let me eat a pear, did you?"

"Well ..." Martha hesitated, "yes, but it wasn't my fault! I got rid of the pears, I stole the pears, I even bribed the grocer to keep the pears away and you got one anyway! What was I supposed to do? Even the TARDIS didn't know what to do and – anyway, is this really the time to be thinking about pears? The Family is destroying the entire countryside!"

"They can wait a minute! You let me eat a _pear_! It is going to take a couple hundred years for me to get this taste out of my mouth! Well … only about ten. Well … actually only about two weeks, three days, seventeen hours, and nine minutes, but that's beside the point! Now I have to go fight a family of murdering psychopaths with the taste of pears in my mouth. I am _never_ going to forgive you for this, Martha Jones. Never ever."

**A/N:** _Please_ review!


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